Croatia Airlines advised to downsize fleet

Advisors suggest smaller fleet
Three consultancy firms, Dutch based KPMG, international conglomerate BDO and Intel, who have been selected to advise Croatia Airlines during its restructuring and recovery programme have proposed for the carrier to downsize on its fleet in order to save costs. The recovery plan, leaked by the Croatian media, suggests the airline should retire two Airbus A320s. Croatia Airlines currently has three aircraft of the type in its fleet with the capacity to seat 164 passengers. The aircraft have already been earmarked for retirement as they are due to be replaced by new Airbus A319s. However, the arrival of the A319s has now been delayed by several years until 2015.

In contrast to the advised, Croatia Airlines has been forced to lease aircraft this summer due to its fleet already being stretched over the busy months. The airline is using one of Adria Airways’ Airbus jets for weekend flights while a Trade Air Fokker F100 has also been operating some flights on behalf of Croatia Airlines this summer. The aircraft is currently being used on flights from Zagreb to Rome, Split and Copenhagen. It is also utilised on services from Split to Dusseldorf and the Italian capital.

The news comes after it was suggested the carrier will need to shed its international network to make a profit. Many have insinuated that Lufthansa, which already carries a large portion of transit passengers from Croatia Airlines, would benefit most from the carrier’s downsizing. In January, the Union of Croatia Airlines Pilots slammed its employer, suggesting that the Croatian carrier is being mismanaged and controlled by Lufthansa. “All of our services are adjusted to Lufthansa as can be seen with flights to Munich, Frankfurt, Vienna and Zurich. Croatia Airlines serves as a classic feeder airline which, through the abovementioned cities, fills Lufthansa’s flights. Croatia Airlines has only seven code share agreements with Star Alliance member airlines, four of which are owned by Lufthansa and the remaining two are heading in that direction”, the union said at the time.

Comments

  1. Purger09:23

    Their proposal was one plane less, but concerning how many lines they want to terminate it is at least two, maybe even three planes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous09:48

    Well, flying just to have routes on the map is no longer fancy in the airline business.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous11:15

    And flying just that some manager can drive ultra-expansive car? It is nice to see how purchasing manager of Croatia airlines have private Aston Martin and several more extremely expensive cars. For sure she gets it in lotto or part time job after Croatia airlines. Maybe she sells strawberries afternoon and on weekends.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous11:43

    At least they are flying with leased planes during the sommer and not like JAT planning with 14 aircraft and then having only 9 ready. I hope there will be an article about this huge scandal!!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous11:51

    EX-YU Aviation for some reason ignore Jat timetable scandal, even it is huge!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous14:32

      To je antihrvatska zavjera! ;)

      Delete
    2. Anonymous15:15

      Jamacno! Inzistiram da se pise o navedenome i to sutra.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous15:49

      Ma neka si ti insistirao! ahahhahaha genijalni ste, zaista! :***

      Delete
  6. Anonymous15:11

    Of course not! That is globalization or by real name neocolonialism. The same one in Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, Romania, Czech Republic, Poland, even in Greece...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous15:19

    I want to hear more about this JAT timetable scandal. Any additional information?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous15:28

      You might want to start spelling the company's name correctly first before asking anything.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous20:55

      Ponasaj se normalno, znas sto covjek misli. Ako vec nisi znao sto da kazes nisi ni ovo trebao. Pozdrav

      Delete
  8. Anonymous15:38

    A sto se tice Lufthanse, pa sta se bunite, dobili ste LH stare 737-200 i pevali "Danke Deutschland". Lufthansa samo naplacuje Vasu zahvalnost. I sta je tu cudno? Ipak, sramota je sto je Beograd dopustio Lufthansi mnogo letova koji se uklapaju u LH intercontinental network i bez pevanja zahvalnosti.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous19:38

    The new reality is settling in. Times are tough and subsidies will be much fewer in the future. Every airline fears and now knows they can very easily go bankrupt. If CA is a national service then that is how it should be managed, just like the post office, or health care system. If it is to be run as a for profit government company, then good luck, because in today's economy that is next to impossible. That is not to say that it can not be run efficiently and waste kept to a minimum. Unfortunately today it is used as a prize for polically friendly people to the regime.

    -- Charlie

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous22:01

    It will be same as for bmi...the big "brother" lh is going to put pressure on ca as long as they shorten the fleet down to max five aircrafts...next step is buying the rest of ca for small amount..that's how it works...they need new routes cause austrian is now tyrolean...less power for lh
    And just a short addition to jat...the scandal is going to be even bigger when the new goverment starts to work...then everything around jat (especially minister mrkonjic) will be official...
    Niko

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous23:24

    World should be nice... But where is the right place for an airline operating with a handfull of ac's ? a right strategy is more important than most of your comments

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous06:51

    Paint all aircraft in Lufthansa colors!

    ReplyDelete

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